Eyman concedes defeat for I-1033

By GERRY SPRATT, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

Published 10:00 pm, Monday, November 2, 2009

Tim Eyman, the backer of Initiative 1033, admitted Tuesday night that the effort to cap city, county and state revenue increases appeared headed for defeat, but he told The Associated Press that votes had not given politicians a mandate to raise taxes.

I-1033 was trailing by a large margin. With about 1 million votes counted early Wednesday morning, 55 percent of voters in the state opposed the initiative, which critics said would cripple governments by restricting their revenues at recession-era levels. The measure was trailing by more than 100,000 votes.

"If Olympia views this as, 'Goody, voters are actually in favor of higher taxes,' they are seriously misleading the electorate," Eyman told the AP.

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The measure would have limited increases in annual revenue to the rate of inflation plus population growth. Any taxes above and beyond the revenue cap would have been used to lower property taxes the following year. The state's Rainy Day Fund would not have been subject to the cap, and politicians could have collected taxes above the limit by asking voters for approval.

No On I-1033 spokesman Scott Whiteaker said voters in areas that have historically supported Eyman-backed initiatives came out against the measure.

" It goes back to our strategy of educating people about what I-1033 would do to people's communities," Whiteaker said. "They see the damage that this recession has done every day in their communities and they know that this initiative would only make things worse."

The potential effects of I-1033 were not clear, but the governor's Office of Financial Management estimated in an August report that the measure could have cost state, county and city governments more than $8 billion in revenue by 2015.

Critics said the initiative would cripple the state's economic recovery and hurt its credit rating as it emerges from the recession.

Backers of the measure said it would restrict how quickly government can grow while still allowing the electorate to approve new taxes.

Eyman, along with associates Mike and Jack Fagan, said the I-1033 campaign was a success regardless of the outcome.

"For the past year, 1033 has put a bright spotlight on government and the people have been given an invaluable opportunity to learn more about taxes and spending and government budgeting," the statement read.

In a July interview with seattlepi.com, Eyman said his critics were resorting to scare tactics to defeat the initiative. Government would be able to spend money beyond the limits imposed by his new measure, he said, as long as voters said "yes."

"We're controlling how much they automatically get, they can get as much as they want if they convince the voters there's a need for more," he explained.

Opponents point to Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights, passed by voters in 1992, and a cautionary tale. Critics of I-1033 say TABOR took a huge chunk of funding away from public schools and the state college system. Voters suspended TABOR for five years in 2005.